Stories of selfless generosity and everyday heroes

Join The Rescue Effort This Father’s Day

How to give the gift of a helping hand

Father’s Day, which arrives on Sunday, celebrates fatherhood at its best, and invites us to think about the guidance and experience we received (or wish we’d received) from our dads. But when you’re thinking about how to honor your father, or how to honor the institution of fatherhood, why not think about how you can extend a similar helping hand to those who need it most.

From now through this Father’s Day, your money goes twice as far for a good cause when you purchase what are known as Rescue Gifts from the International Rescue Committee, an 85-year-old international aid organization that helps support people whose lives have been turned upside down by wars, conflicts, and natural disasters.

Helping those forced from their homes or suffering the effects of disaster has rarely been as necessary as it is today

Though the gifts are symbolic, the effect is not. The money raised through Rescue Gift purchases is used where and when needed, according to the International Rescue Committee (87% of all funds go to aid programs), to support the organization’s work in places around the world (including the United States) that have been affected by disaster or crisis.

Though Good Turns doesn’t usually recommend such organizations so directly, the International Rescue Committee has a sterling track record and a rich history. The organization was originally formed at the request of physicist Albert Einstein, in the months before he arrived in America, fleeing Nazi persecution in Germany, in 1933. It at first worked to help Germans suffering under Nazi rule, but its mission soon broadened to include aid to the many displaced people across Europe. As such, it was almost certainly the first organization whose mission was assistance to refugees, displaced people, and immigrants fleeing autocratic regimes.

Helping those forced from their homes or suffering the effects of disaster has rarely been as necessary as it is today. So when you’re thinking about what to get dad for Father’s Day, or if you want to make a meaningful impact on behalf of dads everywhere, think about a Rescue Gift from the International Rescue Committee that will help immigrants, refugees, and those in crisis around the world. Who knows, you just might be helping the next Albert Einstein.